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How Tom Cruise and Miles Teller pulled off those insane, high-flying stunts in Top Gun: Maverick

By Jack King

According to the aviation website Aerocorner , in today's money, a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet — the fighter jet du jour used by the U.S. Navy since 1995 — costs the American government $67.4 million. That isn't a bulk deal, folks: it's per plane. It should come as no surprise to anyone with a sliver of critical thought, then, that Tom Cruise , Miles Teller and Co. didn't actually pilot the vehicles we see in Top Gun: Maverick .  

“But it looks real!” Yeah, it does. That's movie magic, baby.

Nevertheless, Tom Cruise knew from experience on the first Top Gun just how physically taxing the face-melting forces of extreme flight can be: on his debut test run, rocketing up to double the speed of launching astronauts, he hurled inside his oxygen mask. While they might not have actually hit the throttle and handled the joysticks, Cruise did insist that they actually go up into the air, albeit as passengers, not pilots. 

Ergo, he put the ensemble of Top Gun candidates through an intensive training course in the run-up to production. Going from smaller prop planes to, eventually, actual F-18s — loaned to the filmmakers by the Department of Defence for a measly $11,000 an hour — they learned not to fly the things, but how best to mitigate the ill effects of jet flight. In part, this was a three-month boot camp to avoid air sickness en masse. 

But it worked: “There was never a time on Top Gun: Maverick where we had to delay or stop filming because somebody felt sick,” says Kevin LaRosa II, the movie's aerial stunt coordinator. Sitting down with LaRosa for just under an hour, we got all the goss from the making of the Top Gun sequel.

The first rule of Top Gun: Maverick ? It had to be real, even when it couldn't be

"We had what I like to call rules on Top Gun: Maverick as far as aerials were concerned. And the first and foremost rule, it all had to be real. However: not every aircraft we used in the movie is readily available in the United States, or they're not flyable here, and we show their aircraft flying. 

“So here's the other rule: there has to be an aircraft in front of the lens, but a subject [stand-in] aircraft could be used — like another F-18. And then visual effects comes in, they tweak or retexture it to look like a different aircraft. [See: the ambiguously-defined ”fifth-generation jets" the equally nebulous bad guys fly.]

“But the beauty of that is the audience should know that there really is an aircraft out there — the vapour's going to be real, the flight dynamics are going to be real, it's simply a digital reskin of a real fighter. When it came to VFX plane shots? Always a real aircraft.”

And yes, that includes the cast actually being inside the cockpit

"Our cast had to be in the aircraft for every shot. So when they're delivering those epic performances, they are really in there pulling those Gs. Production went to great lengths to design that in-cockpit IMAX camera set up so those actors could be in there, doing that.

"This was a process that was built in and heavily driven by Tom Cruise. They had me build the training programme: we started them in Cessna 172s — my father and I were actually the first cast flight instructors — and those little single-engine aeroplanes are entry-level aircraft that anyone would learn to fly. 

"This gave the actors spatial orientation, and an understanding of what flying was all about, where to look where, where to move their hands, what all of the gauges do, the basic things. How to turn, land, takeoff.

"We graduated from there to an aircraft called the Extra 300. Their new instructor there was Chuck Coleman, a great friend of mine — again, this is all being heavily monitored by Tom Cruise every day, every step of the way. [Cruise earned his pilot license in the mid ‘90s.]

"This is the aircraft the general public would’ve seen in Red Bull Air Races or other stunt shows. It's a single-engine, piston-driven aeroplane that's extremely manoeuvrable and capable of pulling a lot of Gs. This part was to build up their G tolerance.

"From there, we moved on to the L-39 Albatross, a Czechoslovakian fighter trainer jet imported to the US — it's readily available, very manoeuvrable, very fun. And this was for the cast to learn how to pull heavy Gs. By the time they graduated from this one, and got into the F-18s, they were seasoned pros.

“This process lasted for three months, all in parts of Southern and Central California. That's why even for a guy like me, who can watch something and pick it apart, I watched Top Gun: Maverick and it looks like they're real naval aviators.”

Before Top Gun: Maverick , the technology to shoot it didn't exist

"The Cinejet platform is something that I dreamt up: I needed a camera platform that would match the story quality of Top Gun: Maverick , something that'd really let us get in there, into the dogfights and canyon runs, really put the audience through a thrill ride.

"I was struggling to find the right platform and, again, I landed on the L-39 Albatros. I put a picture of a camera gimbal over the nose of the jet — in an old programme called Microsoft Paint — and said, you know what, that's it. We had to work with the manufacturers to make it a reality but, a year later, the L-39 Cinejet was a real thing.

"Previous jet-based platforms worked with partially stabilised camera technology, meaning that if I'm flying that aircraft, and I rock my wings at all, it could disturb the shot. It was a lot harder for the aerial director of photography, or the camera operators sitting in the back of the jet — they'd have to stabilise my movements, which is very difficult to do.

“With the Cinejet, the gimbal is fully stabilised. It doesn't matter what I do while I'm flying, that thing's gonna be rock steady. Now you can get very aggressive, really get the camera in there so we're shoving the audience in the face of these afterburners.”

In the cockpit, the actors became their own directors, make-up artists and cameramen

"We were working with F/A-18 F Models, which are two-seat F-18s — basically a pilot up front, and typically a weapon system operator in the back seat. They look very, very similar. So we'd have forward-facing cameras over the shoulder of actual naval aviators in the front seat at the controls, and four rear-facing cameras [facing the cast] in the back.

By Jessie Atkinson

By Adrian Clark

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"For the exterior sequences — say when we see Tom flying an F-18, we're enhancing that F-18 with CGI to change it from a two-seat to a single seat. The beauty is that really is a shot of Tom in the back seat of that F-18, so he is there, being piloted by a genuine naval aviator.

"The cast would have an hour and a half to two hours in the morning, and another period in the afternoon, but typically no more than four hours a day. But that's a lot of flying. When you're pulling those days and doing the type of manoeuvres that we were doing, that's a lot.

“Obviously everything in the cockpit needs to be stowed away. They would unzip their flight suit, pull out whatever they need to do their own hair and makeup — you know, spray their face if they needed extra sweat, make sure their mask was centred, their googles were clean.

“Once that was all done they'd stow all that stuff, hit the big red button and start rolling the camera. This is where they became like a [director of photography]: they'd tell their pilots, 'Hey, I need the sun back here at five o'clock, I need a thirty-degree right bank, and I'm gonna hit these lines!'

"Remember, in a jet, you're moving really fast, you're covering a lot of terrain — it's not like you can just get the perfect background and leave it there, you have to hit it, say your line, and come all the way back to get [another take]. By the time we'd get to the debrief, we'd sit there and watch maybe ten takes, and two would be perfect.

“So it's a lot of work — not just sitting there taking a joy ride!”

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Tom Cruise reveals how the amazing flight stunts in Top Gun: Maverick were shot

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Top Gun : Maverick is a ‘barrier-breaking sequel’ whose real-life jet-flying scenes will, ahem, ‘take your breath away’, according to rave reviews. But just how real is real?

Fans had demanded a sequel to the 1986 classic for decades but star Tom Cruise had held off until the studio could meet his non-negotiable requirement.

‘If I’m ever going to entertain this, we’re shooting everything practically,’ Cruise told them. ‘I’m in that F/A-18 [jet], period. So we’re going to have to develop camera rigs. There’s going to be wind tunnels and engineering. It’s going to take a long, long time for me to figure it out.’

Then came the small matter of convincing the US Navy to let them shoot a film live in $67.4 million military jets. Initially the Navy was resistant – couldn’t the studio just use CGI special effects like everyone else?

But Cruise was determined. Every time you see an actor in an aeroplane in Top Gun: Maverick, there is an actor in an aeroplane.

The only visual effects used were for manoeuvres involving safety considerations.

‘There will be speculation that, “well, there was no way an actor was in that airplane at 50ft inverted, going over the ridge at 580mph at seven Gs.” But there was!’ confirms the US Navy’s technical adviser for the film, Captain Brian Ferguson.

That was fine for Cruise, an experienced pilot who flies warbirds for fun (the vintage silver Red Tail plane Cruise flies with Jennifer Connelly in the movie is actually his), but he then had to enlist and train his young cast to fly planes.

‘You had to sign a paper basically saying you weren’t afraid to fly,’ Danny Ramirez, who plays new character Fanboy, said. ‘And I was like “Well, I’m definitely terrified of being in the air, but I can’t pass this up.”’

‘I wouldn’t let an actor walk my dog, let alone fly a plane,’ Miles Teller, who plays the son of Top Gun character Goose, has joked. ‘Everybody thought it would be impossible and that’s what drove it.’

Cruise created an intense five-month aviation programme for his cast, complete with daily targets. Each evening they had to record their progress so Cruise could adjust their training.

‘I read every form, every night,’ Cruise has attested.

It was all necessary. The cast had to withstand extreme G-force without throwing up or blacking out. The G-force distortion of the actors’ faces is unfaked.

More than that, they were required to act under those conditions, with no margin for error.

The US Navy was keen to collaborate – after all, the original Top Gun boosted recruitment by 500% in the year after the movie’s release.

But it’s not like Hollywood had them at their beck and call. Time in the air was limited and if they looked through the rushes and realised the lighting or make-up wasn’t right or the actors fluffed lines, it’s not like popping back up to do reshoots was an option.

Each flight demanded hours of briefing. Ground-to-air units shot simultaneously and there were days where 27 cameras were constantly deployed to ensure full coverage.

So where to go from here? With Cruise collaborating with Elon Musk and Nasa on a movie that will be shot in space, the only way is up, up, up.

Top Gun: Maverick is out in cinemas on Friday.

MORE : Top Gun: Maverick cast praise sequel’s ‘awesome’ diversity: ‘It was great to see folks who look like you’

MORE : Tom Cruise opens up on powerful reunion with Val Kilmer in Top Gun: Maverick after going head-to-head with Iceman in original film

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Tom Cruise Did His Own Stunts For Top Gun: Maverick

The Hollywood icon was behind the cockpit in all those action shots.

By Lan Pitts on May 5, 2022 at 10:39AM PDT

It looks like the passage of time or going several g's can't stop Tom Cruise from doing what he wants. The 59-year-old actor arrived for the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick in only the way he can, on a helicopter aboard the retired aircraft carrier USS Midway.

It's been 36 years since the original Top Gun and pitching a sequel had almost taken a decade. Originally scheduled for a 2020 release, and delayed due to the pandemic, Top Gun: Maverick returns to tell the story of Cruise's Pete Mitchell confronting his past and helping his late friend's son, played by Miles Teller, train as a pilot.

Cruise, a licensed pilot, has been preparing for his return as Maverick for years now and producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed that was indeed the actor inside the cockpits for those action scenes.

"Every time you see him flying, that’s him in that jet", he told The Hollywood Reporter . "You can't pull Tom Cruise back. He’s going to do what he’s going do."

Cruise's fellow castmembers also said that he doesn't shy away from doing the harder stuff. Glen Powell, who plays Lieutenant "Hangman" Seresin, mentioned that he's very much hands-on when it comes to stunt work.

"Tom does not half-ass anything, as we all know, and Tom put together a flight program for all of us so that by the time we graduated to the F/A18, we wouldn't be passing out or puking in Naval assets," he said. "When you have Maverick training you how to fly and that enthusiasm, it really rubs off on you."

Top Gun: Maverick hits theaters on May 27.

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Winning the Skies Without Losing Your Lunch: Filming ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

The makers of the “Top Gun” sequel discuss the challenges of filming practical aerial stunts.

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By Amy Nicholson

Before Tom Cruise signed on to star in the original “Top Gun,” he asked to take a test flight in a jet. Cruise wasn’t yet world famous, so when he arrived at the hangar, his long hair still in a ponytail left over from “Legend,” the pilots, according to one of the film’s producers, Jerry Bruckheimer, decided to give this Hollywood hippie the ride of his life. Zipping at 6.5 G’s — more than twice the G-forces some astronauts endure during rocket launches — Cruise felt the blood drain from his head. He vomited in his fighter-pilot mask.

He agreed to make the film.

Cruise continued to fly so fast, and so frequently, that he learned to squeeze his thighs and abs to stay conscious. His stomach adjusted to the speed. When the director Tony Scott put a camera in the cockpit, Cruise could smile for his close-ups. His castmates weren’t as prepared.

“They all threw up and their eyes rolled back in their heads,” Bruckheimer said in a phone interview. The original footage “was just a mess,” he admitted. “We couldn’t use any of it.”

“Top Gun” made Cruise a superstar — and the experience of shooting it stuck with him so much, he was convinced he needed to lead a three-month flight course for the cast of “Top Gun: Maverick,” a sequel, now in theaters, that has had 35 years to build up suspense. In the new movie, Cruise’s Capt. Pete Mitchell (known as Maverick) readies a dozen young pilots for a dangerous mission to destroy an underground uranium plant in an enemy land. Behind the scenes, Cruise did roughly the same thing, gradually raising the actors’ aerial tolerance, and confidence, from small prop planes to F-18 fighter jets. “He’s got every kind of pilot’s license that you could possibly imagine — helicopters, jets, whatever,” Bruckheimer said.

In essence, “Top Gun: Maverick” is a 450 mile-an-hour flying-heist caper. The mission leaders devise a difficult set of challenges for the pilots: zoom low and quick, vault a steep mountain, spin upside-down, plummet into a basin and survive a near-vertical climb at 9 G’s while dodging missiles.

Cruise, a contender for the most daredevil actor since Buster Keaton, was adamant that every stunt be accomplished with practical effects. Each jet had a U.S. Navy pilot at the controls, while its actor spun like a leaf in a windstorm. The deserts and snow-capped peaks in the background are real, and so are many of the performers’ grimaces, squints, gasps and moans.

“You can’t fake the forces that are put on your body during combat,” the director Joseph Kosinski said by phone. “You can’t do it on a sound stage, you can’t do it on a blue screen. You can’t do it with visual effects.”

From the safety of theater seats, the audience faces its own challenge: unlearning the computer-generated complacency that’s turned modern blockbusters into bedazzled bores. The imagery of the sky and ground spiraling behind the actors’ heads in “Top Gun: Maverick” looks like it must be digital wizardry. It isn’t.

The movie’s aerial coordinator, Kevin LaRosa II, and its aerial unit director of photography, Michael FitzMaurice, filmed from above using three aircraft: two types of jets with exterior cameras mounted on wind-resistant gimbals, and a helicopter, which proved best at capturing the speed of actors whizzing by. One specialized jet could film the same scene using two different lens focal lengths to double the footage captured on a single flight. Once LaRosa heard that the long-anticipated sequel was finally going to become a reality, he also developed his own aircraft, a shiny black plane with cameras that can withstand up to 3 G’s.

“That had never been done before,” LaRosa said in a video interview. As he flew next to the cast, LaRosa dodged trees while keeping an eye on the monitors to make sure FitzMaurice, controlling the cameras from the back of the plane, had gotten the shot.

Kosinski, the director, also spent 15 months working with the Navy to develop and install six cameras in each F-18 cockpit, which meant passing rigorous safety tests and securing the military’s all-clear to remove its own equipment. Luckily, Kosinski said, there were “Top Gun” fans among the commanding officers. “All the admirals that are in charge right now were 21 in 1986, or around there when they signed up,” he said. “They supported us and let us do all this crazy stuff.”

Usually, the Navy forbids pilots from flying below 200 feet during training. One of the film’s most staggering images is of Cruise in an F-18 whooshing just 50 feet above the ground, a height roughly equal to its wingspan. The plane flew so close to the earth that it kicked up dust and made the ground cameras shake. The pilot landed, turned to Cruise, and told the superstar that he’d never do that again.

The actor Monica Barbaro didn’t know how nervous she should be when she agreed to play the pilot Natasha Trace (nickname: Phoenix).

“When I met Joe in my callback, first thing he had me sign a waiver saying that I didn’t have a fear of flying,” Barbaro said by phone. “I just got goose bumps. I was so excited.”

Each flight day kicked off with a two-hour briefing for the pilots and film crew to go over every upcoming shot, movement and line of dialogue. Next, that sequence’s actors and pilots would rehearse the maneuvers in a wooden mock-up of the jet cockpit until the motions were ingrained. Then, they took to the sky to film as many takes as possible before the jet, or the performers, ran out of fuel. In the afternoon, they did it again.

Soaring above the crew, Barbaro and the rest of the cast took on a Swiss Army knife of skills. Instead of hitting her mark on the ground, she had to hit it in the air. The sun was her spotlight. A pilot’s kneeboard on her lap displayed her script, her movements and her necessary coordinates, plus reminders to check her parachute and shoulder straps, fix her hair and makeup, adjust her flight visor, flip on the bright red switch that controlled the cameras, and note down the time codes. Finally, Barbaro had to do her actual job: act.

“Tom just really encouraged everybody, if you are going to throw up, just learn how to do it and move past,” Barbaro said. “We would applaud when anyone threw up, so it became celebrated.” Glen Powell (he plays the hot shot Lt. Jake Seresin, who is called Hangman) even brandished his barf bag while gliding upside-down and flashing a thumbs up.

Barbaro held onto her lunch. But after her first dailies, she said, her face appeared so calm, it gave the impression that the clouds whooshing behind her were simply a green screen. Cruise’s training had prepared her too well.

She was sent back into the sky for a retake.

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How Tom Cruise and Miles Teller pulled off those insane, high-flying stunts in Top Gun: Maverick

By Jack King

According to the aviation website Aerocorner , in today's money, a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet — the fighter jet du jour used by the U.S. Navy since 1995 — costs the American government $67.4 million. That isn't a bulk deal, folks: it's per plane. It should come as no surprise to anyone with a sliver of critical thought, then, that Tom Cruise, Miles Teller and Co. didn't actually pilot the vehicles we see in Top Gun: Maverick.  

“But it looks real!” Yeah, it does. That's movie magic, baby.

Nevertheless, Tom Cruise knew from experience on the first Top Gun just how physically taxing the face-melting forces of extreme flight can be: on his debut test run, rocketing up to double the speed of launching astronauts, he hurled inside his oxygen mask. While they might not have actually hit the throttle and handled the joysticks, Cruise did insist that they actually go up into the air, albeit as passengers, not pilots. 

Ergo, he put the ensemble of Top Gun candidates through an intensive training course in the run-up to production. Going from smaller prop planes to, eventually, actual F-18s — loaned to the filmmakers by the Department of Defence for a measly $11,000 an hour — they learned not to fly the things, but how best to mitigate the ill effects of jet flight. In part, this was a three-month boot camp to avoid air sickness en masse. 

But it worked: “There was never a time on Top Gun: Maverick where we had to delay or stop filming because somebody felt sick,” says Kevin LaRosa II, the movie's aerial stunt coordinator. Sitting down with LaRosa for just under an hour, we got all the goss from the making of the Top Gun sequel.

The first rule of Top Gun: Maverick ? It had to be real, even when it couldn't be

"We had what I like to call rules on Top Gun: Maverick as far as aerials were concerned. And the first and foremost rule, it all had to be real. However: not every aircraft we used in the movie is readily available in the United States, or they're not flyable here, and we show their aircraft flying. 

“So here's the other rule: there has to be an aircraft in front of the lens, but a subject [stand-in] aircraft could be used — like another F-18. And then visual effects comes in, they tweak or retexture it to look like a different aircraft. [See: the ambiguously-defined ”fifth-generation jets" the equally nebulous bad guys fly.]

“But the beauty of that is the audience should know that there really is an aircraft out there — the vapour's going to be real, the flight dynamics are going to be real, it's simply a digital reskin of a real fighter. When it came to VFX plane shots? Always a real aircraft.”

And yes, that includes the cast actually being inside the cockpit

"Our cast had to be in the aircraft for every shot. So when they're delivering those epic performances, they are really in there pulling those Gs. Production went to great lengths to design that in-cockpit IMAX camera set up so those actors could be in there, doing that.

"This was a process that was built in and heavily driven by Tom Cruise. They had me build the training programme: we started them in Cessna 172s — my father and I were actually the first cast flight instructors — and those little single-engine aeroplanes are entry-level aircraft that anyone would learn to fly. 

"This gave the actors spatial orientation, and an understanding of what flying was all about, where to look where, where to move their hands, what all of the gauges do, the basic things. How to turn, land, takeoff.

"We graduated from there to an aircraft called the Extra 300. Their new instructor there was Chuck Coleman, a great friend of mine — again, this is all being heavily monitored by Tom Cruise every day, every step of the way. [Cruise earned his pilot license in the mid ‘90s.]

"This is the aircraft the general public would’ve seen in Red Bull Air Races or other stunt shows. It's a single-engine, piston-driven aeroplane that's extremely manoeuvrable and capable of pulling a lot of Gs. This part was to build up their G tolerance.

"From there, we moved on to the L-39 Albatross, a Czechoslovakian fighter trainer jet imported to the US — it's readily available, very manoeuvrable, very fun. And this was for the cast to learn how to pull heavy Gs. By the time they graduated from this one, and got into the F-18s, they were seasoned pros.

“This process lasted for three months, all in parts of Southern and Central California. That's why even for a guy like me, who can watch something and pick it apart, I watched Top Gun: Maverick and it looks like they're real naval aviators.”

Before Top Gun: Maverick , the technology to shoot it didn't exist

"The Cinejet platform is something that I dreamt up: I needed a camera platform that would match the story quality of Top Gun: Maverick , something that'd really let us get in there, into the dogfights and canyon runs, really put the audience through a thrill ride.

"I was struggling to find the right platform and, again, I landed on the L-39 Albatros. I put a picture of a camera gimbal over the nose of the jet — in an old programme called Microsoft Paint — and said, you know what, that's it. We had to work with the manufacturers to make it a reality but, a year later, the L-39 Cinejet was a real thing.

"Previous jet-based platforms worked with partially stabilised camera technology, meaning that if I'm flying that aircraft, and I rock my wings at all, it could disturb the shot. It was a lot harder for the aerial director of photography, or the camera operators sitting in the back of the jet — they'd have to stabilise my movements, which is very difficult to do.

“With the Cinejet, the gimbal is fully stabilised. It doesn't matter what I do while I'm flying, that thing's gonna be rock steady. Now you can get very aggressive, really get the camera in there so we're shoving the audience in the face of these afterburners.”

In the cockpit, the actors became their own directors, make-up artists and cameramen

"We were working with F/A-18 F Models, which are two-seat F-18s — basically a pilot up front, and typically a weapon system operator in the back seat. They look very, very similar. So we'd have forward-facing cameras over the shoulder of actual naval aviators in the front seat at the controls, and four rear-facing cameras [facing the cast] in the back.

By Gaurav Sonavane

By Maansi V

"For the exterior sequences — say when we see Tom flying an F-18, we're enhancing that F-18 with CGI to change it from a two-seat to a single seat. The beauty is that really is a shot of Tom in the back seat of that F-18, so he is there, being piloted by a genuine naval aviator.

"The cast would have an hour and a half to two hours in the morning, and another period in the afternoon, but typically no more than four hours a day. But that's a lot of flying. When you're pulling those days and doing the type of manoeuvres that we were doing, that's a lot.

“Obviously everything in the cockpit needs to be stowed away. They would unzip their flight suit, pull out whatever they need to do their own hair and makeup — you know, spray their face if they needed extra sweat, make sure their mask was centred, their googles were clean.

“Once that was all done they'd stow all that stuff, hit the big red button and start rolling the camera. This is where they became like a [director of photography]: they'd tell their pilots, 'Hey, I need the sun back here at five o'clock, I need a thirty-degree right bank, and I'm gonna hit these lines!'

"Remember, in a jet, you're moving really fast, you're covering a lot of terrain — it's not like you can just get the perfect background and leave it there, you have to hit it, say your line, and come all the way back to get [another take]. By the time we'd get to the debrief, we'd sit there and watch maybe ten takes, and two would be perfect.

“So it's a lot of work — not just sitting there taking a joy ride!”

via gq-magazine.co.uk

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Tom Cruise Created a Flight-Training Program for Top Gun: Maverick

Along with his deep ties to Scientology , Tom Cruise is also known for his commitment to real stunts. So it should come as no surprise he wanted the actors in Top Gun: Maverick to actually deliver their lines from the cockpits of moving F/A-18 planes. “I wasn’t ready to make a sequel until we had a special story worthy of a sequel and until technology evolved so we could delve deeper into the experience of a fighter pilot,” Cruise said in a promotional video for the movie.

Without proper preparation, however, g-forces exerted on the body by acceleration can result in illness or a dangerous loss of consciousness. To combat that, he personally designed a rigorous monthlong program that introduced his co-stars to different jets and instructors as they learned to fly and slowly built up their g-force tolerance. According to Men’s Health , the aspiring aviators eventually had to sustain up to eight g’s, or around 1,600 pounds of pressure. The cast — including Monica Barbaro, Glen Powell, Greg Tarzan Davis, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Miles Teller, and Lewis Pullman — filled out daily forms for Cruise to review until they were ready for real Navy pilots to take them up in F/A-18s equipped with six IMAX-quality cameras. (The Pentagon reportedly does not allow nonmilitary personnel to operate F/A-18s.) From puking to getting personalized feedback, here’s what Cruise’s co-stars have described going through during the Top Gun training made by “Maverick” himself.

Miles Teller (Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw)

“Nothing bonds a cast together more than collective suffering,” Teller said in the Cannes production notes for Top Gun: Maveric k. “I think, when you’re going through something and you know how tough it is yourself, and you look to the left of you and to the right of you and you see that person going through it, it kind of pushes you a little harder and further than you would normally go. It’s so unique for us that we will only be able to talk about this with each other for the rest of our lives.” Ahhh, trauma bonding.

Teller explained to Men’s Journal that all the elements of Cruise’s training, even breathing techniques, were utilized during the final sequences shot in the F/A-18s. “Every single day of the shoot we were really getting after it,” he said. “Up until the very last day people were fainting and puking.” In fact, Teller told London Live that he personally felt like vomiting every time he went in the air. “It’s funny,” he said, pausing to chuckle with the interviewer. After a moment, however, he added, “Wasn’t so funny for me.”

Monica Barbaro (Lt. Natasha “Phoenix” Trace)

In the Cannes production notes , Barbaro credited Cruise’s training program with preparing her not only to act in the planes but also turn cameras on and off, check makeup, fix props, and communicate with pilots. She explained to The Wrap that Cruise’s “perfect” training program also included minute-by-minute rehearsals with a pilot in a fake plane so that actors could plan when to say their lines. “It was pretty intense,” she said. “We got to watch Tom do it a few times. I was the first person of us pilots to do it. I was the guinea pig.” And while the cast had to go through all the rigorous flight training before even stepping on set, per the New York Daily News , Barbaro made it clear that the work continued during the ten-month shoot. “If we ever had a day off from filming, we would be sent over to the airport to go fly … to keep sustaining Gs,” she said. “It would’ve been a huge disservice to get out of shape.”

Lewis Pullman (Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd)

Pullman didn’t mince words when it came to describing the experience of g-forces. “It felt like you had an elephant sit on top of you,” he told the Daily News . “You’re trying to keep all the blood to your brain so you don’t pass out, and you’re trying to remember your lines and you’re trying to look cool doing it.” Or as he later put it to The Ringer , “It’s sort of like your spine is sliding back into the chair and a rhinoceros just popped a squat on your lap.”

Pullman said that Cruise’s training regimen condensed two years of flight training into three months, covering everything Cruise wished he’d been taught on the original Top Gun. According to Pullman, one of the planes used during training actually allowed the cast to pull more g’s than needed for the final shoot. “So if we could master that without a G-suit, once we got up in the F-18s, it would be like we had been running with weights on,” he explained.

He was also impressed by the tailored feedback that came with the program. Initially, Pullman said, the cast thought that no one was reading the evaluation forms they were asked to fill out every day. “But whenever we saw Tom, he would come up to us and say, ‘Hey man, I saw that on your last flight you had a little trouble pulling zero Gs. Here’s what I do,’” Pullman recalled. “It was like, ‘Holy smokes, Tom Cruise is taking the time out of his jam-packed day to give me personal tips.’”

Danny Ramirez (Lt. Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia)

In an interview with Men’s Health , Ramirez called the intensive training program “the Tom Cruise School of Being a Badass.” He added that logging more than 40 hours of flight time “pulling mad Gs” taught him “the art of puking and rallying.” Before he shot Top Gun: Maverick , Ramirez apparently had never known how to recover after vomiting. “So in a confined space, and to be able to push through it, I was very proud of it,” he told The Ringer. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to be cut out of this movie.’” He also shared his admiration for his co-stars who were going through the same training, noting that Barbaro “for sure never puked,” despite pulling the most g’s on the EA-300. “But Lewis [Pullman] has the most grit of anyone I’ve ever met,” Ramirez recalled. “He was going to puke and instead said, ‘Not today,’ and swallowed it all back down.”

Jay Ellis (Lt. Reuben “Payback” Fitch)

“Flying commercial is boring now,” Ellis said when TMZ stopped him, appropriately, outside of LAX. He told the A.V. Club that Cruise’s commitment to reading everyone’s daily questionnaires was humbling. The cast submitted responses on a computer that were then sent to Cruise. “The next day you would get an email from Tom,” Ellis recalled. “And he would say, ‘Hey, I read your questions last night. Going to add a few more days to your flight training. Does next week work for you?’” But Ellis’s training takeaways weren’t limited to aviation. According to Ellis’s interview with Men’s Health , Cruise taught him to keep viewers engaged by being conscious of camera movements, which he later brought to his roles on Mrs. America and season four of Insecure . The skill seems like it’d be useful on any set, but especially so on Top Gun: Maverick, given that director Joseph Kosinski estimated that every 60 to 70 minutes of acting in the sky translated to a mere minute of usable footage.

Greg Tarzan Davis (Lt. Javy “Coyote” Machado)

Davis told The Ringer that he lied during his audition for Top Gun: Maverick and said that he was not afraid of heights. As you might expect, that meant he had some fears to face when it came to flight training. But according to the cast, the training was set up to explain the mechanics and physics of what would happen on the plane before they took flight. “Tom makes sure you feel comfortable with it, then he lets the instructors do what they need to do,” Davis said.

Still, he faced his own physical challenges while in the air taking g’s. In addition to g-forces distorting his face so much that it looked like the life in his body “drained out,” he struggled with motion sickness. Due to the camera setup, he could not look at the horizon to settle his stomach. “You have to look inside the cockpit — that makes you even sicker,” he said. Like his fellow onscreen pilots, Davis also praised Cruise for actively responding to the training questionnaires in hopes of improving the learning experience. “He’s like the greatest Yelp reviewer ever,” Davis said.

Glenn Powell (Lt. Jake “Hangman” Seresin)

At CinemaCon , Powell explained that Cruise put together the training program so that his co-stars wouldn’t be puking or passing out in government assets. “Half the shots in this movie, I’m literally holding a bag of my puke,” he admitted, noting that pulling g’s was incredibly painful. “Every time we went up there you have to mentally brace for a fight,” he said. “You get on the ground and you’re exhausted. That’s what’s impressive about Tom. He’s flying more than anyone in the movie — he would fly three times a day.” Powell told The Ringer that breathing in the face masks for pilots required pushing out and sucking in air nearly to the point of hyperventilation. Cast members also had to learn to do a flexing maneuver to keep blood from rushing away from the brain and to the legs. But whenever the said maneuver was executed incorrectly? “You can see the tunnel start to close in and you’re like, ‘Oh no,’” Powell said. “You just try to keep pushing blood back in your head so you don’t black out.”

Still, with Cruise in the lead, the training program was inspiring to his younger co-stars. According to Powell, the seasoned actor gave “all the young guns” on the film an iPad with Ground School, which would allow them to study to become pilots in real life. “I started flying on my own, and Tom was with me every step of the way,” Powell said. “After I got my private pilot’s license, there was a note waiting for me on the ground from Tom that said, ‘Welcome to the Skies.’”

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He’s got a need for speed!

Kevin LaRosa II, 36, is the aerial coordinator and camera pilot who trained all the actors and captured all the action-packed shots for “Top Gun: Maverick,” which premieres Friday.

LaRosa was born in 1986 — the year the first movie premiered — and comes from a long line of aviation experts. He’s a third-generation pilot and second-generation aerial coordinator and stunt pilot.

“My father is a well-known stunt pilot. And growing up in a house where your dad does something cool like that, you’re just hooked,” he told The Post.

“But I do love telling people there was one thing that almost derailed me. And that’s the first ‘Top Gun’ movie, believe it or not. I almost changed courses because I wanted to be an F-14 Navy pilot.”

Ultimately, LaRosa followed in his father’s footsteps and now, he’s fulfilled his “Top Gun” dreams while working with Tom Cruise on the highly anticipated sequel.

“I can tell you right now, that man can fly an airplane,” LaRosa said of Cruise, who reprises his role as Navy fighter Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, once a young hotshot pilot turned trainer who is grappling with his past. “Tom is already an incredible aviator,” he said, adding that the 59-year-old actor (who is confirmed shirtless in the movie) is “an accomplished pilot” and motivation “to go work out.”

The original “Top Gun” became a classic after it was released, celebrated for its lust-worthy cast, amazing aerial stunts and portrayals of everlasting bonds. The first film, directed by Tony Scott, inspired a spike of US Navy registrations, which increased 500% the next year and catapulted Cruise to box office fame.

Cruise is known for doing most of his own stunts . For this film he does them all zipping through the clouds and pulling up to eight Gs — a measure of gravitational force experienced through acceleration — which is comparable to 600 pounds pressing against your body. “So just to put it in perspective, it’s a level of power that most people never get to experience,” LaRosa said.

The “Top Gun” star owns his own P-51 Mustang (a World War II fighter jet) which LaRosa said the actor flies “like it’s an extension of himself.” Cruise came onto the set with a love for and understanding of aviation, LaRosa said, and really wanted to inspire that passion in his new co-stars, including Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro and Glen Powell.

‘I can tell you right now, that man can fly an airplane. Tom [Cruise] is already an incredible aviator.’ Aerial coordinator and “Top Gun: Maverick” camera pilot LaRosa

“I remember in the beginning of the movie, he gave us an incredible speech,” LaRosa said. “We felt the pressure. But that pressure, I feel like, was our motivation.”

The actors in the new film went through extensive and intense training both on the ground and in the air with LaRosa, his father (also named Kevin) and US Navy pilots to get them comfortable in the cockpit. The newbies began training in a 172 aircraft to learn spatial awareness, what the gauges do and how to take off and land before jumping into fighter jets.

“That’s why they looked so good on camera because they’re not up there for the first time,” LaRosa said. “They’re not afraid of it. They get in those things and they’re focused on what they need to do to make the scenes great.”

By the end of training, Cruise and LaRosa weren’t the only ones flipping through the clouds.

“There’s nobody else that’s doing it for them, that is 100% the cast in those aircraft doing everything,” LaRosa confirmed, adding that the film doesn’t use stunt doubles or CGI effects.

Not only did the actors have to become pilots for the film, but they also had to be their own personal lighting crews, hair stylists, makeup artists and directors, pulling out mirrors in their cockpits to make sure they were camera-ready after each G-force blast.

And it wasn’t always pretty.

LaRosa said that some of the actors got air-sick, but remained professional, even if it meant filming a scene with a bag full of vomit on their lap. Powell, he added, did some of his best work with his sick bag discreetly sloshing around.

“There’s no pulling over on the side of the road and waiting it out,” he said. “You get right back into it.”

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Screen Rant

How much of top gun 2 is real & how much is cgi.

Top Gun: Maverick features plenty of thrilling flying sequences and stunts. Here's what was done for real by Tom Cruise and the cast and what was CGI.

Tom Cruise's need for speed returns in Top Gun: Maverick , and the movie features an incredible amount of real stunts and flying instead of fully Top Gun: Maverick CGI scenes. Over 30 years after he originally played Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in 1986's Top Gun , the release of the sequel comes at a point in time where Cruise has reinvented his Hollywood persona. Once it finally came time to make Top Gun: Maverick , one of the biggest questions surrounding the film was just how far Cruise's long-awaited sequel would go to make everything as real as possible. The original Top Gun featured great dogfights in the skies, and director Tony Scott captured much of the action in real life by using professional pilots.

The film easily could have tried to replicate the Top Gun dogfights by relying heavily on the advancements in visual effects over the last 36 years. However, the minimal Top Gun: Maverick CGI used to create its aerial scenes is unsurprising — with Tom Cruise leading the charge, Paramount went all-in on keeping up with the star and producer's penchant for realistic action scenes. As the movie follows Maverick as he trains a group of young pilots — led by Goose's son Rooster (Miles Teller) and his rival Hangman (Glen Powell) — Top Gun 2 is filled with thrilling flight sequences that were accomplished mostly through practical effects. Here is what is known about which parts of Top Gun: Maverick are real and what was achieved with special effects.

Does Tom Cruise Really Fly In Top Gun 2?

Tom Cruise does fly a plane for real in Top Gun: Maverick . The actor got his pilot's license in the years after Top Gun was released in 1986, so it was one of his mandates to make a sequel that he'd get to fly a real fighter jet in the sequel. While Maverick is often seen flying in a Boeing F/A 18F Super Hornet jet and the fictional Hypersonic "Darkstar" jet, Cruise was not in control of either aircraft.

Tom Cruise flew backseat in these real planes with another pilot, experiencing incredible g-force and flying at high speeds, but he was not piloting them for the most part. Although Cruise is a licensed pilot, the limits of his skills, insurance, and military regulations meant that another Navy pilot needed to be in command of these planes. Otherwise, there's not much Top Gun: Maverick CGI to speak of.

While Tom Cruise does really fly in several jets for Top Gun 2 , he also was given the chance to pilot one for real. The sequence comes during Top Gun: Maverick 's ending after Pete is reunited with Penny (Jennifer Connelly). He takes her for a flight in his rebuilt P-51 propeller plane, and this was the one instance where Tom Cruise was actually serving as the pilot. The P-51 Mustang used in Top Gun: Maverick is owned by Tom Cruise in real life, which allowed him to really fly it for the film's conclusion.

Do Top Gun: Maverick's Other Cast Members Really Fly?

The Top Gun: Maverick CGI use was minimal, and since most of Top Gun 2 was real the other cast members also flew in their jets just like Cruise. However, none of the Top Gun: Maverick cast flew the jets by themselves. All the cast member's jets were piloted by trained Navy pilots for their aerial sequences. Even though flying in a plane as a passenger might sound a bit easy, it required significant training from the cast.

Tom Cruise developed a three-month, intensive training program for Miles Teller's Rooster and his co-stars that they had to go through prior to filming beginning. This included various tests and physical training meant to prepare them to be in a real F/A 18 Super Hornet for production. All the Top Gun: Maverick cast members who had to be in a jet for the movie participated in the grueling process, which ended with them being more than ready for the real experience.

Beyond the flight training, capturing Top Gun: Maverick 's aerial sequences meant the cast members essentially became their own crew and cinematographer. A typical day on set when flying was involved saw the individual actors leave for an hour or two at a time and film their aerial scenes. However, director Joseph Kosinski couldn't communicate with them during this time or see the footage that was being filmed inside Top Gun 2 's fighter jets . So the crew of the sequel invented new camera rigs to go inside the cockpit with the actors, which required them to properly frame and light the shots. Their only aid during this time was the real pilots in the cockpit with them, but they were focused on flying the jets.

How Much Of Top Gun: Maverick Is CGI?

Putting the cast in real flying scenes doesn't mean that everything in Top Gun: Maverick was done practically. The movie certainly thrives on the realism created by these believable sequences, but visual effects were used in other ways. One area that seems to be partially aided by Top Gun: Maverick CGI is the dogfights, as the missiles launching and bullets shooting at the planes are surely fake.

Doing any of that practically would put the actors, real pilots, and crew in great danger. With that in mind, it also seems that the bombing of the underground uranium facility belonging to Top Gun: Maverick 's villains was aided by CGI. There are surely other smaller examples of visual effects being used in Top Gun: Maverick , but it was all done to service the real aerial sequences happening throughout the rest of the film.

Why Top Gun 2 Uses Practical Stunts Rather Than CGI

Beyond Tom Cruise's thrill-seeking persona, Top Gun: Maverick uses practical stunts rather than Top Gun: Maverick CGI to give viewers a more believable experience. Everyone involved with the movie agreed that it would be far too noticeable if the actors were faking what it felt like to experience almost 10-gs of force, traveling at over 600 knots, and everything else that comes with actually being in a fighter jet.

This wasn't the easy route to take by any measure, as Top Gun 2 could've played it safe by placing the actors in front of green screens and inside fake cockpits to tackle its aerial sequences. But Tom Cruise's history of real stunts meant this shortcut was incredibly unlikely. Doing the flying practically brings an even greater sense of danger to Top Gun: Maverick — on top of it just looking incredible — as audiences can clearly see what the actors endured to deliver these mesmerizing action scenes.

How The Top Gun: Maverick Stunts Were Filmed

Top Gun: Maverick 's stunts were filmed through real U.S. Navy pilots taking actors on top-of-the-line fighter jets. They were followed by three different aircraft mounted with specialized cameras that can withstand the G-forces involved. This includes a helicopter, a specialized jet equipped with two different lens focal lengths for doubling the footage on one run, and a custom camera drone plane that can withstand up to 3 Gs, developed by Top Gun: Maverick aerial coordinator Kevin LaRosa.

While LaRosa dodged trees and other aircraft on the controls, it was aerial unit director of photography Michael FitzMaurice's job to ensure that they had the shot. The Top Gun: Maverick cast , after training with Tom Cruise, became well-equipped at withstanding the same G-forces that threatened to break the crew's highly-specialized gear. As director Joseph Kosinski said in interview ( via The New York Times) " You can’t fake the forces that are put on your body during combat... You can’t do it on a sound stage, you can’t do it on a blue screen. You can’t do it with visual effects."

Top Gun: Maverick's breathtaking stunts were made possible mainly by two factors: the extreme dedication of its actors and the extensive experience and expertise of the entire film crew. Indeed, Kosinki even reportedly spent around 15 months developing and installing cameras in the F-18s used in the movie, working with Navy officers who were huge fans of the original Top Gun . Considering the massive, record-breaking box office success of the sequel, the incredible dedication that even allowed the stunt-heavy movie to be captured in the first place, and how audiences have been clamoring for Top Gun 3 , Top Gun: Maverick is definitely just the beginning of this promising franchise's long-awaited comeback.

How Much Top Gun 2's Real Stunts Cost

The budget for Top Gun: Maverick was exceptionally high, and often using real stunts versus a Top Gun: Maverick CGI stunt ended up costing more money. The final budget for Top Gun: Maverick was $171 million, and thankfully the film's box office made it the biggest movie of 2022, more than making up for any money lost. The exact amount spent on aerial stunts isn't known, but is assuredly astronomical.

According to a report by Bloomberg , the U.S. Navy charged production a whopping $11,374 per hour to access the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets. Cruise flew none of these planes, as the Pentagon bars anyone outside of the U.S. Military from using their jets. However, he did fly plenty of other planes in the movie. Either way, Top Gun: Maverick had a massive budget , and while it wasn't used towards CGI, plenty was definitely put toward the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets.

Tom Cruise Wouldn't Have Done Top Gun 2 Without Real Jets

Top Gun: Maverick was a successful return to form for both the Top Gun IP and Tom Cruise in 2022, and the incredible use of real stunts and jets over CGI was partially responsible. However, it seems from past interviews with Tom Cruise that the Top Gun sequel couldn't have happened any other way. Speaking to Extra all the way back in 2015, Cruise was adamant that a then-hypothetical Top Gun 2 wouldn't have his blessing if it opted for CGI over real jets.

"If I can figure it out, if all of us can figure it out, it’d be fun to do, I’d like to fly those jets again, but we got to do all the jets practical, no CGI on the jets,” Cruise said at the time when asked if he'd return to Top Gun, “I’m saying right now no CGI on the jets. If we can figure all that out, and the Department of Defense will allow us to do it, that would be fun. ” Clearly, Tom Cruise got his wish, as in 2022 Top Gun: Maverick emerged, completed with minimal CGI and the real jets he'd dreamed of flying again in 2015.

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Top Gun: Maverick

After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN's elite graduates on a mission that demands the ... Read all After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN's elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it. After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN's elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.

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• 4.3K User reviews
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• Capt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell

• Penny Benjamin

• Lt. Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw

• Adm. Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky

• CWO4 Bernie 'Hondo' Coleman

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• Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch

• Lt. Mickey 'Fanboy' Garcia

• Lt. Jake 'Hangman' Seresin

• Lt. Neil 'Omaha' Vikander

• Lt. Billy 'Fritz' Avalone

• Lt. Callie 'Halo' Bassett

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• Trivia According to Miles Teller , the cast got to choose their own call signs. He chose "Rooster" because it was in the same family as "Goose."
• Goofs At 1h12'10" Coyote is in G-LOC, releases the stick and his aircraft falls towards the ground. Super-hornet are equipped with auto GCAS (automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System), which would react to the situation and take control to climb and level at a safe altitude with no obstacles.

Rear Admiral : Maverick. Thirty-plus years of service. Combat medals. Citations. Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last 40 years.

[Cain looks through pages of Maverick's records]

Rear Admiral : 'Distinguished.' 'Distinguished.' 'Distinguished.' Yet you can't get a promotion, you won't retire, and, despite your best efforts, you refuse to die. You should be at least a two-star admiral by now, if not a senator. Yet here you are: Captain. Why is that?

Maverick : It's one of life's mysteries, sir.

Rear Admiral : This isn't a joke. I asked you a question.

Maverick : I'm where I belong, sir.

Rear Admiral : Well, the navy doesn't see it that way. Not anymore.

Rear Admiral : These planes you've been testing, Captain, one day, sooner or later, they won't need pilots at all. Pilots that need to sleep, eat, take a piss. Pilots that disobey orders. All you did was buy some time for those men out there. The future is coming, and you're not in it.

[Cain faces the officer by the door]

Rear Admiral : Escort this man off the base. Take him to his quarters. Wait with him while he packs his gear. I want him on the road to North Island within the hour.

[surprised look on Maverick's face]

Maverick : North Island, sir?

Rear Admiral : Call came in with impeccable timing, right as I was driving here to ground your ass once and for all. It galls me to say it, but... for reasons known only to the Almighty and your guardian angel, you've been called back to Top Gun.

Maverick : Sir?

Rear Admiral : You are dismissed, Captain.

[Maverick proceeds to leave Cain's office]

Rear Admiral : The end is inevitable, Maverick. Your kind is headed for extinction.

[Maverick turns around]

Maverick : Maybe so, sir. But not today.

• Crazy credits "Top Gun 001: Tom Cruise" is listed among the other pilots who worked on the film.
• Connections Featured in Conan: Tom Cruise (2019)
• Soundtracks Danger Zone From Top Gun (1986) Original Soundtrack Written by Giorgio Moroder & Tom Whitlock Performed by Kenny Loggins Courtesy of Columbia Records By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment

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• May 27, 2022 (United States)
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• $170,000,000 (estimated)
• $718,732,821
• $126,707,459
• May 29, 2022
• $1,495,696,292

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 10 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
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How Tom Cruise and Miles Teller Pulled Off Those Insane Stunts in Top Gun: Maverick

By Jack King

According to the aviation website Aerocorner , in today's money, a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet — the fighter jet du jour used by the U.S. Navy since 1995 — costs the American government $67.4 million. That isn't a bulk deal, folks: it's per plane. It should come as no surprise to anyone with a sliver of critical thought, then, that Tom Cruise , Miles Teller and Co. didn't actually pilot the vehicles we see in Top Gun: Maverick .

“But it looks real!” Yeah, it does. That's movie magic, baby.

Nevertheless, Tom Cruise knew from experience on the first Top Gun just how physically taxing the face-melting forces of extreme flight can be: on his debut test run, rocketing up to double the speed of launching astronauts, he hurled inside his oxygen mask. While they might not have actually hit the throttle and handled the joysticks, Cruise did insist that they actually go up into the air, albeit as passengers, not pilots.

Ergo, he put the ensemble of Top Gun candidates through an intensive training course in the run-up to production. Going from smaller prop planes to, eventually, actual F-18s — loaned to the filmmakers by the Department of Defence for a measly $11,000 an hour — they learned not to fly the things, but how best to mitigate the ill effects of jet flight. In part, this was a three-month boot camp to avoid air sickness en masse.

But it worked: “There was never a time on Top Gun: Maverick where we had to delay or stop filming because somebody felt sick,” says Kevin LaRosa II, the movie's aerial stunt coordinator. Sitting down with LaRosa for just under an hour, we got all the goss from the making of the Top Gun sequel.

"We had what I like to call rules on Top Gun: Maverick as far as aerials were concerned. And the first and foremost rule, it all had to be real. However: not every aircraft we used in the movie is readily available in the United States, or they're not flyable here, and we show their aircraft flying.

“So here's the other rule: there has to be an aircraft in front of the lens, but a subject [stand-in] aircraft could be used — like another F-18. And then visual effects comes in, they tweak or retexture it to look like a different aircraft. [See: the ambiguously-defined ”fifth-generation jets" the equally nebulous bad guys fly.]

“But the beauty of that is the audience should know that there really is an aircraft out there — the vapour's going to be real, the flight dynamics are going to be real, it's simply a digital reskin of a real fighter. When it came to VFX plane shots? Always a real aircraft.”

"Our cast had to be in the aircraft for every shot. So when they're delivering those epic performances, they are really in there pulling those Gs. Production went to great lengths to design that in-cockpit IMAX camera set up so those actors could be in there, doing that.

"This was a process that was built in and heavily driven by Tom Cruise. They had me build the training programme: we started them in Cessna 172s — my father and I were actually the first cast flight instructors — and those little single-engine aeroplanes are entry-level aircraft that anyone would learn to fly.

"This gave the actors spatial orientation, and an understanding of what flying was all about, where to look where, where to move their hands, what all of the gauges do, the basic things. How to turn, land, takeoff.

"We graduated from there to an aircraft called the Extra 300. Their new instructor there was Chuck Coleman, a great friend of mine — again, this is all being heavily monitored by Tom Cruise every day, every step of the way. [Cruise earned his pilot license in the mid ‘90s.]

"This is the aircraft the general public would’ve seen in Red Bull Air Races or other stunt shows. It's a single-engine, piston-driven aeroplane that's extremely manoeuvrable and capable of pulling a lot of Gs. This part was to build up their G tolerance.

"From there, we moved on to the L-39 Albatross, a Czechoslovakian fighter trainer jet imported to the US — it's readily available, very manoeuvrable, very fun. And this was for the cast to learn how to pull heavy Gs. By the time they graduated from this one, and got into the F-18s, they were seasoned pros.

“This process lasted for three months, all in parts of Southern and Central California. That's why even for a guy like me, who can watch something and pick it apart, I watched Top Gun: Maverick and it looks like they're real naval aviators.”

"The Cinejet platform is something that I dreamt up: I needed a camera platform that would match the story quality of Top Gun: Maverick , something that'd really let us get in there, into the dogfights and canyon runs, really put the audience through a thrill ride.

"I was struggling to find the right platform and, again, I landed on the L-39 Albatros. I put a picture of a camera gimbal over the nose of the jet — in an old programme called Microsoft Paint — and said, you know what, that's it. We had to work with the manufacturers to make it a reality but, a year later, the L-39 Cinejet was a real thing.

"Previous jet-based platforms worked with partially stabilised camera technology, meaning that if I'm flying that aircraft, and I rock my wings at all, it could disturb the shot. It was a lot harder for the aerial director of photography, or the camera operators sitting in the back of the jet — they'd have to stabilise my movements, which is very difficult to do.

“With the Cinejet, the gimbal is fully stabilised. It doesn't matter what I do while I'm flying, that thing's gonna be rock steady. Now you can get very aggressive, really get the camera in there so we're shoving the audience in the face of these afterburners.”

"We were working with F/A-18 F Models, which are two-seat F-18s — basically a pilot up front, and typically a weapon system operator in the back seat. They look very, very similar. So we'd have forward-facing cameras over the shoulder of actual naval aviators in the front seat at the controls, and four rear-facing cameras [facing the cast] in the back.

By Eileen Cartter

By Zach Baron

By Esther Zuckerman

"For the exterior sequences — say when we see Tom flying an F-18, we're enhancing that F-18 with CGI to change it from a two-seat to a single seat. The beauty is that really is a shot of Tom in the back seat of that F-18, so he is there, being piloted by a genuine naval aviator.

"The cast would have an hour and a half to two hours in the morning, and another period in the afternoon, but typically no more than four hours a day. But that's a lot of flying. When you're pulling those days and doing the type of manoeuvres that we were doing, that's a lot.

“Obviously everything in the cockpit needs to be stowed away. They would unzip their flight suit, pull out whatever they need to do their own hair and makeup — you know, spray their face if they needed extra sweat, make sure their mask was centred, their googles were clean.

“Once that was all done they'd stow all that stuff, hit the big red button and start rolling the camera. This is where they became like a [director of photography]: they'd tell their pilots, 'Hey, I need the sun back here at five o'clock, I need a thirty-degree right bank, and I'm gonna hit these lines!'

"Remember, in a jet, you're moving really fast, you're covering a lot of terrain — it's not like you can just get the perfect background and leave it there, you have to hit it, say your line, and come all the way back to get [another take]. By the time we'd get to the debrief, we'd sit there and watch maybe ten takes, and two would be perfect.

“So it's a lot of work — not just sitting there taking a joy ride!”

This story originally ran on   British GQ   with the title  “How Tom Cruise and Miles Teller pulled off those insane, high-flying stunts in Top Gun: Maverick ”

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Tom Cruise’s 10 best movie stunts: from six minutes underwater to scaling Burj Khalifa

Ahead of the release of mission impossible – dead reckoning: part one, we reveal the hollywood star’s most impressive stunts.

Tom Cruise is one of the few Hollywood actors who performs his own death-defying stunts. Photos: AP

It’s enough to give any movie insurer a heart attack to see their million-dollar leading man dangling off skyscrapers and hanging off the wings of planes.

But that’s exactly what Tom Cruise has spent his five decades-long career doing.

On Sunday, he shared a video promoting Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning , parts one and two, which he is filming in South Africa, and to thank fans for watching Top Gun: Maverick in cinemas.

In the first part of the video, he sits on the side of an aircraft with director Christopher McQuarrie before jumping out of the plane solo and continuing to share his message:

“As always, thank you for allowing us to entertain you. It truly is the honour of a lifetime. I’m running out of altitude, so I’ve got to get back to work. We’ve got to get this shot. You have a very safe and happy holiday. We’ll see you at the movies."

Even at the age of 60, Cruise still does most of his own stunts.

“I feel that [when acting] you're bringing everything, you know, physically and emotionally, to a character in a story,” he told Graham Norton on his UK talk show. “I’ve trained for 30 years doing [stunts] and it allows us to put cameras where you are normally not able to.”

With Top Gun: Maverick one of the year’s biggest hits, and the seventh instalment in the Mission Impossible franchise out next year, we take a look back at 10 of Cruise’s most spectacular stunts …

10. Mission: Impossible — Fallout, 2018

Cruise trained for 16 hours a day to master not only flying a helicopter in the sixth instalment of the action franchise, but also to pull off a spinning dive in it.

In the scene Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt goes into a 360° corkscrew dive in a H125 helicopter, a move which trained pilots spend months learning about in the classroom before moving to a simulator and then the real thing.

“Cruise put in about three months of solid days in the classroom and in the air to gain the skills that he needed,” said Wired .

9. Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, 2015

To retrieve a computer chip that will help him track down the baddy Soloman Lane (Sean Harris), Ethan Hunt has to dive into an underwater safe, while evading a fast-swinging crane circling around.

After jumping off a 36.6m ledge into a 6m-deep water tank, Cruise held his breath for six and a half minutes to pull off the stunt in one take.

8. Top Gun: Maverick, 2022

Cruise got back in the pilot seat to reprise his role as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in this year’s blockbuster.

And in true Cruise form, he did most of the aerial stunts himself, enduring eight g-force in the F/A-18 jets which the US Department of Defence lent to the movie for $11,000 per hour.

“Every time we went up there you have to mentally brace for a fight. You get on the ground and you’re exhausted,” Glenn Powell who played Lt. Jake “Hangman” Seresin told The Ringer. “That’s what’s impressive about Tom. He’s flying more than anyone in the movie — he would fly three times a day.”

7. Mission: Impossible — Fallout, 2018

Cruise’s stunt work in the most recent M:I instalment made headlines when it was revealed he had broken his ankle during a particularly daring stunt.

Pictures of the actor’s foot bent back the wrong way emerged after he hit a building leaping from one roof to another, causing production to be halted for six weeks.

“I knew instantly my ankle was broken and I really didn’t want to do it again so just got up and carried on with the take,” he told Norton. “I said, ‘It’s broken. That’s a wrap. Take me to hospital’ and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangements.”

6. Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning: Part One, 2023

According to the Hollywood rumour mill, Cruise practised riding a bike off a Norwegian cliff a whopping 13,000 times to perfect the stunt that will appear in the upcoming movie.

He also tried the skydiving scene 500 times to nail the shot which appears at the end of the trailer.

5. The Mummy, 2017

“There was a lot of barfing,” said Alex Kurtzman, the film’s writer and director of the 64 takes Tom Cruise did to nail the cargo plane's crash scene in the movie. He said it was the crew — not Cruise — who suffered.

The actor did the stunt inside a Nasa plane which is used to train astronauts for zero gravity. The plane goes up for 25,000 feet before plummeting in free fall for 22 seconds.

Despite being offered the chance to create the scene on a studio soundstage the actor opted for the plane for more realism.

4. Mission: Impossible 2, 2000

As far as opening scenes go, the sight of Cruise free climbing up a 609.6m cliff in the second film in the franchise is pretty impressive.

It took seven takes to catch Cruise dangling off the cliff in Utah, and also performing a 4.6m jump from one cliff to another attached by one safety rope.

“I was really mad that he wanted to do it, but I tried to stop him and I couldn’t,” director John Woo told EW . “I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn’t even watch the monitor when we shot it.”

3. Mission: Impossible — Fallout, 2018

The scene in which Ethan Hunt and CIA operative August Walker (Henry Cavill) have to do a Halo (high-altitude, low open) jump involves waiting until the very last minute to open the parachute.

Cruise did 106 skydives with the broken ankle he sustained in a previous stunt to nail the free fall scene, jumping out of a C-17 plane alongside a stuntman standing in for Cavill.

2. Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, 2011

It’s one of the most famous images in moviemaking history, Tom Cruise sitting on top of Burj Khalifa after filming the fourth film in the series in Dubai.

Ethan Hunt uses a pair of special suction gloves to reach the 130th floor of the world’s tallest building, in scenes which saw a harness-wearing Cruise shooting 518m in the air.

1. Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, 2015

For one of cinema’s most impressive feats, Cruise held on to the side of an Airbus A400M as it took off and climbed to 1,000 feet.

Shot at RAF Wittering airbase in the UK, Cruise faced speeds of 1,000 knots and wore a special harness and contact lenses to protect his eyes.

“When he wants to do something, he’ll figure out a way to do it,” the film’s director of photography, Robert Elswit, told The Hollywood Reporter . “If it couldn’t actually be Tom on the plane, I think he wouldn’t want the sequence in the movie.”

The Arts Edit

A guide to arts and culture, from a Middle Eastern perspective

Tom Cruise's 10 best stunts of all time, ranked

• Tom Cruise does his own stunts and it's remarkable what he's been able to pull off.
• Hanging on the side of a plane, skydiving, climbing the world's tallest building — he's done it all.
• Here's a recap of his greatest stunts.

10. For the cargo-plane crash in "The Mummy," Cruise did the stunt inside a NASA plane that trains astronauts for zero gravity.

In 2017's "The Mummy," Cruise finds himself stuck in a cargo plane as it crashes. To pull off a scene like this, actors would typically film it in a controlled setting like a sound stage surrounded by a green screen.

Not Cruise, though.

The star shot the scene in a plane that NASA uses to train astronauts .

The scene was filmed in the plane which had to go up to 25,000 feet to get the look that Cruise was in zero gravity. The plane then did a free fall for 22 seconds.

Cruise did the flight four times to pull off the scene.

9. Cruise flew a helicopter in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

For the thrilling helicopter-chase scene in the finale of "Fallout," Cruise spent 16 hours a day training to get to the required 2,000 hours to fly a helicopter on his own.

But Cruise didn't just fly the helicopter. He also pulled off a 360-degree corkscrew dive in it, which would challenge even the most veteran pilot.

8. Cruise is really in a F/A-18 jet for the flight scenes in "Top Gun" Maverick" and had to deal with the G-forces.

When you see Cruise and the cast looking like they are battling G-forces in the jets, complete with distorted faces, it's because they really were.

Cruise and the cast went through training so their dogfight scenes could look as realistic as possible — which meant sitting in the F/A-18 jets as they were spun around and took dramatic dives.

7. Cruise climbed a 2,000-foot cliff in "Mission: Impossible 2."

In the opening scene of 2000's "M: I 2," Cruise is seen climbing a cliff. And yes, that's really him.

Cruise scaled the cliff in Utah with nothing but a safety rope . He also did a 15-foot jump from one cliff to another.

6. Cruise held his breath for six minutes for an underwater stunt in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."

In one scene, Cruise's Ethan Hunt has to dive into an underwater safe to retrieve the computer chip that will lead him closer to the villain.

Along with having to hold his breath the whole time , he must keep away from a large crane that's circling around the safe.

For the scene, Cruise first jumped off a 120-foot ledge. Then, in a 20-foot deep-water tank, Cruise held his breath for six minutes.

5. Cruise broke his ankle jumping between buildings while making "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

Tom Cruise loves to run in his movies; it's become his trademark. But his ability to continue running came into question after a stunt went wrong on the set of "Fallout."

While jumping from one one building to another, Cruise hit the wall of the building the wrong way and broke his ankle.

The accident halted production for months and doctors told Cruise his running days might be over. But, six weeks later, Cruise was back on set doing sprints .

4. Cruise climbed the tallest building in the world for "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol."

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world, and Cruise climbed it.

For "Ghost Protocol," the actor's climb got him up to 1,700 feet in the air .

He also fell four stories down by rappelling on the surface of the building.

3. Cruise did 500 skydives and over 13,000 motocross jumps for the thrilling motorcycle stunt in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1."

For the latest "M:I" movie, Cruise once again pushed himself.

And one stunt in particular is definitely up there as one of his craziest ideas yet: driving a motorcycle off a cliff.

The star did 500 skydives and over 13,000 motocross jumps to prepare for the stunt. And that wasn't just so Cruise had the skill and comfort to pull off the stunt; the training also made it possible for director Christopher McQuarrie and his crew to map out camera angles to capture it. 

The stunt was then done on the first day of principal photography.

"We know either we will continue with the film or we're not. Let's know day one!" Cruise told "Entertainment Tonight" on why it was done on the first day.

Cruise ended up doing the stunt six times on the day of shooting.

2. Cruise hung on the side of a plane as it took off for "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation."

Cruise clung to the side of a massive Airbus A400M plane as it took off and went up to 1,000 feet dealing with speeds of 100 knots.

To protect the actor, he was secured with a wire attached to the plane. He also had special contacts on to protect his eyes from debris.

Cruise did this stunt eight times.

1. Cruise did 106 skydives with a broken ankle to pull off the HALO jump in "Mission: Impossible — Fallout."

While Cruise was healing the broken ankle he sustained earlier in the "Fallout" production, he went and pulled off the most amazing stunt he's done in his career so far.

In the movie, Cruise's character and CIA tagalong August Walker (Henry Cavill) decide to do a HALO jump — a high-altitude, low-open skydive, in which you open your parachute at a low altitude after free-falling for a period of time — out of a giant C-17 plane to get into Paris undetected.

Cruise did this for real by executing the jump 106 times over two weeks , many of them done during golden hour, a very brief period of perfect lighting that occurs just before sunset.

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Top Gun 3 Update: Jerry Bruckheimer Says Tom Cruise Has Been Pitched a 'Story He Liked' (Exclusive)

While Jerry Bruckheimer says Tom Cruise liked a story pitch for 'Top Gun 3,' he notes Cruise is "a very in-demand actor and he's got a lot of movies lined up"

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

Plans are in motion for Tom Cruise to take to the skies again in a third Top Gun movie.

Jerry Bruckheimer , the producer behind Cruise's 1986 hit Top Gun and the 2022 box office sensation Top Gun: Maverick , tells PEOPLE "we're working on" Top Gun 3 as he promotes his new movie with filmmaker Guy Ritchie , The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare .

"We pitched Tom a story he liked. But he's a very in-demand actor and he's got a lot of movies lined up, so we have to wait and see," Bruckheimer, 80, adds.

When asked what might surprise fans about Cruise, 61, Bruckheimer immediately points to the actor's work ethic. "How hard he works," he tells PEOPLE. "A lot of actors, they finish the day, they get in their car and they go home. Tom stays around, talks to the other actors, looks at the film that they shot, wants to know what's happening tomorrow. He's really engaged in every part of the process."

Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett

Top Gun: Maverick grossed nearly $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office following its release in 2022. The sequel was the highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office that calendar year and currently stands out as the fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time in the U.S. and 12th-highest in the world.

When asked what the movie's success more than 25 years after the first Top Gun means to him, Bruckheimer tells PEOPLE, "Oh, it's fantastic."

"Just the fact that we can entertain so many people around the world was something that we worked so hard on. It is just the best there is," he says. "Just to stand back in the theater and watch an audience applaud and cry and laugh. Laughter is the best thing in the world."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

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Bruckheimer's next movie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is   in theaters April 19. The producer teamed up with director Ritchie, 55, for a film that stars Henry Cavill as a British special ops agent during World War II.

"I've been a fan of his since [1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ], way back when he was a young pup," Bruckheimer says of working with Ritchie. "It's been a long time trying to get him. Finally, [we] got him."

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Top Gun 3 gets uplifting Tom Cruise script update

Top Gun 3 has gotten a positive Tom Cruise update.

At least there won’t be a 36-year break between the second and third installments in the franchise. Top Gun: Maverick was released in 2022, 36 years after the original film was released in 1986.

The film was a huge box office hit, though. It grossed nearly $1.5 billion at the box office during its theatrical run. While Cruise did return as Peter “Maverick” Mitchell, the sequel introduced a new-age cast. Glen Powell and Miles Teller headlined the young cast.

Of course, after a film like Maverick makes $1.5 billion, another entry is inevitable. Even Joker, which made over $1 billion during its theatrical run, is getting a sequel.

Top Gun 3’s story update

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer spoke to ScreenRant about the forthcoming sequel while promoting The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. He revealed that Joseph Kosinski came up with a story that’s “wonderful.”

“It will be Tom Cruise. Tom is amazing. We spent time with him. We have a story. Joe Kosinski had a wonderful story idea for it, and he (Tom Cruise) said I really like that, so we’re developing it,” Bruckheimer said. “But you never know when it’s going to get made because Tom is so busy. He’s doing Mission: Impossible right now, he’s got a picture after it. Hopefully, we’ll get a screenplay that he loves, and we’ll be back in the air again.”

At least Bruckheimer and Kosinski have an idea for the story of the forthcoming sequel. As Bruckheimer noted, Cruise is one of the busiest men in Hollywood, so it will be hard to secure the time required to make the film.

What is Top Gun 3 about?

Only Jerry Bruckheimer, Joseph Kosinski, and Tom Cruise know what the story ideas for Top Gun 3 are. It will be a long while before fans are made aware of the story.

However, it’s safe to assume that Maverick will once again return alongside Rooster (Miles Teller) and Hangman (Glen Powell) given the actors’ star power. Jennifer Connelly is also likely to return given her being Maverick’s love interest.

The biggest difference between the first two Top Gun movies is that the sequel doesn’t feature any major deaths. In the first film, Maverick’s best friend, LTJG Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) dies. His son, Rooster, makes it out of the film alive and has seemingly repaired his relationship with Maverick.

And then there’s Hangman, who played the role that Val Kilmer did as Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in the first Top Gun. While he doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with Rooster, there is a mutual respect shared by the end of the film. After all, it’s Hangman who ultimately saves Maverick and Rooster.

But I’m sure male egos will once again get in the way of the mission in Top Gun 3. Expect there still to be clashes of testosterone in the forthcoming sequel.

Maverick is always known as a renegade in the Top Gun films. By the end of the second film, he does seem to have matured. He has also found love in Penny (Jennifer Connelly), and perhaps that relationship will weigh heavily on the next film.

Tom Cruise Is ‘So Busy’ That ‘You Never Know’ When ‘Top Gun 3’ Will Get Made, Says Franchise Producer: He ‘Really’ Likes the ‘Wonderful Story Idea’

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Tom Cruise is a busy man, which makes it all but impossible to put a timeline on when “ Top Gun ” fans might finally get to see a third installment in the beloved action-drama franchise. Variety confirmed in January that Paramount was developing “Top Gun 3”  and had tapped its “Top Gun: Maverick” co-writer Ehren Kruger to work on the screenplay. Franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer now tells ScreenRant he has no idea when Cruise might even have free time in his schedule to shoot the third “Top Gun” film.

Cruise is currently filming “Mission: Impossible 8,” which will serve as the sequel to last year’s “Dead Reckoning.” Paramount is also behind that action franchise. The studio is hoping that “Top Gun: Maverick”   director Joseph Kosinski will return to helm the next “Top Gun” movie. Bruckheimer now confirmed Kosinski came up with the story idea for the next sequel. “Top Gun” newcomers Glen Powell, Miles Teller and more are likely to return.

“People looked at me like I knew what was going on,” Powell told Variety at Sundance earlier this year about the next “Top Gun ” movie. “There is going to be some fun stuff being announced soon…but it was confidential to me. I talk to [Joseph] Kosinski, Cruise and Jerry [Bruckheimer] all the time. There is stuff happening and it sounds very exciting. I don’t know when I’ll be going back…I’m sure there is a jet waiting for me sometime in the future.”

“Top Gun: Maverick” was a huge hit for Paramount, which tried for decades to find a way to get Cruise back in aviators. The film was nominated for the Oscar for best picture and grossed nearly $1.5 billion, making it the most popular film of Cruise’s career.

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'Top Gun 3' Will Still Have Tom Cruise as The Lead, Confirms Jerry Bruckheimer

"Joe Kosinski had a wonderful story idea for it."

The Big Picture

• Tom Cruise's star power shines in Top Gun: Maverick , with the film grossing $1.4 billion and earning rave reviews.
• Producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirms Cruise will return as Maverick for Top Gun 3 , with a promising story in the works.
• Top Gun: Maverick won Best Sound at the Oscars and is available to stream on Paramount+.

Inspired by producer and star Tom Cruise , Paramount's Top Gun: Maverick powered up its jet engines and made a rapid climb up the ladder of success in what was a thrilling sequel to the beloved original 1986 film, Top Gun . Described by some as the film that “saved Hollywood,” after the effects of the pandemic on the entertainment industry, the action sequel grossed an astonishingly impressive run, $1.4 billion at the global box office . Given the heights of success Top Gun: Maverick attained, it came as no surprise when it was announced that a third movie was in development with Cruise returning as the titular character, Maverick.

While it might seem a bit too soon for a third installment in the franchise, given it took 36 years for Maverick to arrive after Tony Scott 's 1986 original film, Top Gun 3 already has a story in the wings. Speaking with ScreenRant in an interview promoting his latest project, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare , Top Gun: Maverick producer Jerry Bruckheimer provided an update on the third installment's story and production timeline.

Bruckheimer confirmed that there is a "wonderful story" on the ground that Cruise "really" likes. The producer then confirms that Cruise will be back in the cockpit as Maverick once more. Bruckheimer's comments in full read:

"It will be Tom Cruise. Tom is amazing. We spent time with him. We have a story. Joe Kosinski had a wonderful story idea for it, and he (Tom Cruise) said I really like that, so we’re developing it. But you never know when it’s going to get made because Tom is so busy. He’s doing Mission: Impossible right now, he’s got a picture after it. Hopefully, we’ll get a screenplay that he loves, and we’ll be back in the air again."

Tom Cruise Still Has Star Power

Top Gun: Maverick holds a 96% critic rating and an audience score of 99% on the review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes . Joseph Kosinski helmed the feature with a screenplay by Ehren Kruger , Eric Warren Singer , and Christopher McQuarrie . The film went on to bag six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture , Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song), Best Sound, and Best Achievement in Visual Effects.

Top Gun: Maverick went on to claim the gong for Best Sound, further cementing Cruise's star power . Top Gun 3 likely means a return for Miles Teller as Rooster and Glen Powell as Hangman alongside Cruise's Maverick, and while there might have been suggestions that Cruise might not return, it seems scheduling might be the only challenge left to navigate.

Top Gun: Maverick is currently streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.

Top Gun: Maverick

After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN's elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.

WATCH ON PARAMOUNT+